a girl name annie.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

I am 20 years old now (It still sounds odd to acknowledge that.) and I have had migraines since I was 16 years old. Migraines are typically stress induced tension headaches that that cause a person to exhibit a higher velocity of pain. I often, as per habit, avoid bright locations, as light stimulates my migraines. As I am an avid lover of café I cannot bring myself to deal away with that. Also on a side note to that, since I have been drinking coffee since I was near 15 or 14 years old I find I have nearly adapted to the negative effects of it. This may not work for all people and it is not a scientifically viable way to avoid caffiene crashes, headaches, or the 'espresso jitters'. Honestly, each person understands their body. And it is up to you guys to try and see which things your body does or does not agree with (Within the range of a doctors approval of course).

So on to the point of the post. Shall we. I recently read an article written by Esrom Aritonang called "Treatment for Mirgriane--Alternatives Best Cure for Your Severe Headache" who suggested something other than the standard dose of doctor mandated pharmaceuticals. Since I stopped taking the little blue monster of a pill near about two years this article peeked my interest. In it he mentions all the standard 'cures' for migraines.

However among all these options was something new though. Something intriguing. Rosemary Tea. I am partial to any sort of teas. Really I think I just like hot beverages in general. I adore a warm mulled cider in autumn, pumpkin spice lattes in the fall, hot cocoa in winter, cold tea in spring, and hot tea at any given time. But Rosemary Tea. Never thought of it. Though Aritonang was started to have said that Rosemary Tea was "able to reduce migraine pain".

Worth a shot, I thought.

So I tried it. Not straight Rosemary because it was morning time, I was just settling into my poached egg, kale and devotional. So, long story short here's what I came up with:

Pre-Autumn Mulled Tea:

Ingredients:

Cup water

Slice of Apple

Two mint leaves

Four Rosemary leaves (sprigs?)

Pumpkin spice seasoning (optional)

Quarter of a cut lime

Assemblage:

1. Boil a teacup (mug, coffee cup, etc.) of water.

2. Add a sliver of an apple, dash of pumpkin spice seasoning*, four leaves (sprigs?) of Rosemary, two mint leaves, and the quarter piece of lime.

3. Steep for one-two(ish) minutes.**

Notes:

* I really didn't taste the pumpkin spice so next time I probably won't bother with it. Though I may swap it for ginger as it is a natural detoxifying spice. :-)

** Do not over steep, this will turn extremely acidic and end up trysting like lime juice. Also it's best not to let it get cold. I mean some teas are just best when they are drunk hot. Right.

So did it work?

Sure it did. It's not like I avidly sought out stressors though to try and peek a mirgriane but I also didn't get a headache all day.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Well here's the answer to the existence of Dino's and the explanation for their fossil record. And no it's not Gen. 1:24 though that's a good defense, it's also a rather simple explanation and easy thing to defend. And I don't know about you guys but I like to defend the hard issues. The issues that atheists or evolutionists throw at us. The meaning behind seemingly meaningless sufferings. The purpose of salvation. The explanation that accounts for fossil records. And so on and so forth.

The answer resides in my favorite book of the Bible; Job. Particularly chapters 40 and 41. Chapter 40 speaks of a monster Job calls Behemoth. Many have said the Behemoth is a hippo or elephant However, 40:17, says: "Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit." The "cedar" mentioned here refers to the cedars of Lebanon. Which were high priced and luxurious antiquities in Ancient times, measured above timber and often times 130 feet long. What elephant or hippo has a tail that long and tough to penetrate? A Brachiosaurus has a tail 150 feet long. Further, verse 23 speaks to this creatures size and strength, saying "If the river rages, it is not disturbed, it is secure, though the Jordan should surge up to its mouth."

Chapter 41 describes a great and fearsome sea creature which some claim is a whale. However, 41:26, says: "Whoever strikes it with a sword will have no effect, nor with the spear, arrow, or dart." Whales can be pierced, travel in family 'Pods' and when separated fear Great White Sharks. Here in verse 34 Job does not speak of creatures but of a creature who "...beholdeth all high [things]: he [is] a king over all the children of pride." Orcas travel in wolf-pack like Pods and do not as Job says in verse 21 "kindleth coals," with their mouths nor does "a flame goeth out of his mouth." In 2008 Oslo uncovered the fossil record of a Pliosaur Kronosaurus whose teeth were sharp enough to cut through wood and was 50 feet long.

As for the existence of fossils, well fossilization does not take millions of years, under the right conditions a bone could be fossilized. Such as, if it is buried under volcanic ash or is submerged in very deep water.

Gen. Chapter 6 presents the explanation for both the extinction and fossilization of Dino's. The great forty-day-forty-night flood that had Noah building that ark of his, remember that from Sunday school. Now if your thinking, 'The Book of Job comes after the Book of Genesis.' The book of Job is actually one of the oldest books of the Bible and is said to have occurred somewhere in the middle of Genesis.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

When the Lord says be patient and wait for me to answer your prayers he is not kidding. And when he told me that the retreat would continue down the mountain he was not kidding! I not only got to fellowship with my dad tonight for about an hour but with my mom too! Since like 4:00pm we have just been sharing what the Lord has spoken to us, and man the way God orchestrated it all, I mean we were just watching the bible series on the t.v and whenever God put something on our hearts we would pause the show and just start talking. Eventually by the second pause we just stopped pressing play and she really opened up to me. I wanted to pray with her but I felt like it wasn't the right time and I was also extremely terrified. But...just thought I'd share that with you guys because you know, I just can't contain myself when God works.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Man you guys. I was really bummed this morning. I just came back from a most wonderful retreat where the Son of God just moved in waves and I thought I was, you know, ready to conquer the world. I was wrong.

My early morning prayer was interpreted by the clock. And I was so incredibly tired, like you have no idea you I was so discouraged. I prayed every second I was driving to school and waiting for my teacher and if just felt so wrong being there. I was aching to be before Jesus the way I was over the weekend. And really in agony that I wasn't able to devote every fiber of my being to talking to Jesus, worshipping him and just being before his face in awe. I seriously was thinking maybe I don't belong in school and I was praying about dropping out even and just joining the peace corps now. But now I am feeling so blessed you guys. First I received a gas card out of blue which is something my brother has been in need of and at first I was I'm not even allowed to use A&P so I tried to get into the word but it was just like reading a book and that just was heartbreaking that I couldn't hear Jesus's voice so clearly. So I prayed and Jesus just reminded me of what Ryan was saying his wife did, look up a meaningful verse. And I've never really done that since coming to The Lord I figured God will bring a verse to me while I'm reading my bible, but I tried it. And was so convicted that I almost started weeping right here in Starbucks. It was in a list of 20 verses and all of a sudden boom Jesus spoke. (Romans 15:13) May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And he just asked me, you know in that loving joyful way of his. 'Where is your joy my beloved? Are you so little in faith that you have already forgotten to look for me? Have I not promised you I would be beside you walking as you walk, sitting where you sit? I warned you rejoining the world would break your heart. Where is your humility, where are the tears for the suffering you shed on that mountain, where is my disciple so willing to be used so open to the gifts I have given you? Where is your joy?'

And you guys can imagine my reaction right, just completely broken. I mean honestly, talk about a potter crushing his clay teapot. So I just lift up you sisters in prayer and if you struggling as I was and still am with how to deal with coming back to the world after that awe inspiring weekend I just would ask you Jesus to speak to us, each of our contrite hearts, break us, convict us, bring to our minds the things that are causing distance from us, and in your holy name Jesus rebuke Satan's hold on all you beloveds. Thank you for your grace God and the limitless love we still can't fully grasp. May the full joy of spirit of Jesus be with you my sisters. Amen.

Friday, March 21, 2014

So I was reading Romans 2 and man God was just revealing to me my heart. That is has been petty, unforgiving, unloving, and just hardened by bitterness. I have been judging the people of this world, my teachers and fellow Christians and this chapter has just made me realize how wrong it is of me and why. We have to hold people accountable for their actions because that is what keeps us on that narrow path and before God. But if we never pour out our hearts convictions to that person, if we bring to their knowledge what their actions look to the world on a surface level than we are doing them no good. They may be ignorant of the things that they are doing and how the unrighteousness of it is distancing them from God. But we are not, we differentiate from what is ungodly and what is righteous. We are not ignorant and so we judge. But where this becomes a sin is by not doing anything to help them, God gave his beloveds the gift of wisdom, to know him if we so choose. Our judgements than of other people become as Romans 2:1 says inexcusable, we become condemned to the judgement of God for our judging of his people because we at some point in our lives have done the same thing the people we are judging are doing. And if we hadn't had someone who was in the word and who saw the unrighteousness of our ignorant deeds but not the righteousness of our hearts than they never would have came to us and said hey this thing that your doing it isn't right, it isn't according to the word of God. That takes love. Doing something for the betterment of another person.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

God's people were divided, in disunion amongst who should be King, Solomon's son Rehoboam or Jeroboam. But God because of Solomon's disobedience had already taken the throne from David's seed temporally. And so it was that thousands of chosen warriors were sent to fight against the house of Israel until The Lord spoke to a man of faith Shemaiah and told him not to take up arms and fight against his brethren but to return every warrior to his tent for God said "this thing is from me." And the assembled warriors "hearkened therefore the word of the Lord, and returned to depart, according to the word of the Lord."(12:24)

I thought I would share just how amazing this verse seemed to me. How it convicted me. How often I doubt when The Lord speaks to me. I never thought I was doing this but this verse just showed me that I have been lately so cautious. I don't want to do anything that isn't of the Lord so I second guess myself. I tell myself pray on it more, and it's not a particularly bad thing it's just that if God has confirmed something for me so clearly once than I shouldn't allow myself the time to be cautious. I should do as these warriors of God did hearken God's voice and depart from the humanity in me that is telling me what if it is not of The Lord. I think it may be because I have just come out of a time of not praying that I feel like in a way I forgotten what it feels like to know when God has confirmed something for me.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

So I was reading Ephesians and man was it exactly what I needed to hear. It was a rebuke, conviction, and call to forgiveness from God. I mean even the subtitle for the chapter read in my bible: Of forgiveness.

What I got from it was go before Jesus humbled seeking his compassion and forgiveness for the bitterness I have in my heart towards the person I cannot seem to forgive than go before that person and speak of what they did to cause that bitterness, but speak the truth in love. (Eph.4:15) Forgiveness renews the spirit of our mind (4:23) we have to be willing to allow God to destroy that bitterness, we have to come to the place in our lives where we are able to offer up all that bitterness, pain, and any other feelings associated with the trespass to Jesus so that he can take it and destroy it.(2:30-31) That, I feel, is how we are able to forgive. Because that trespass is poison to us, to our spirit, our compassion, our calling in Christ. It fills us until it hardens our heart and makes us forget the love we are called to have for every one of God's creatures. But above all we have to come resolved before Jesus, ready to let go of that pain, because Jesus gives us the ability to forgive but it is up to us has people to be continuously kind to that person we're forgiving, Jesus has already forgiven them (if they asked) for what they have done to us, just as he has forgiven us of what we have done against him. But we also are called to forgive because we are called to have unity in the one body of Christ (4:4-5) our bitterness towards that person is cause disunity. We have been given strength from God, but we have to supply a certain amount of action in order to accept that strength and diligence, in order to exert our compassion onto that person who's hurt us the most, in order to pray for that persons well being and steadfast in the faith. That takes effort on our part, a wiliness to be kind to them, to love them as God loves us.

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About Me

I take my coffee black, and write when I am bored which is frequently. I love those huge mugs that seem to be only found in little cafe's. I have a love for the beach and a passion for designing, I am always, and I mean always, looking for more knowledge. History is something dear and speical to me; it is one of the many things that embody me. I don't know who I am nor am I close to finding out. I have no wish to have childern or get married. Then again the future is never set in stone...